Roughly 16,272 murders were committed in the United States during 2008. Of these, about 10,886 or 67% were committed with firearms.

A year and a half a go, our country was shaken when they found out about the Sandyhook Elementary School Shooting where 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot twenty children and six adult staff members. Had the principal had a gun he could have faced the gunner and saved innocent children who hadn't even gotten all their teeth in yet.

Many criticize that people couldn't do these crimes if they don't have the gun in the first place. But no, guns are stolen in cases as this and many others.

A 1982 survey of male felons in 11 state prisons dispersed across the U.S. found:

• 34% had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"

• 40% had decided not to commit a crime because they "knew or believed that the victim was carrying a gun"

• 69% personally knew other criminals who had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"

Based on survey data from a 2000 study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, U.S. civilians use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year.

I would first of all like to thank my opponent for respectfully accept my proposal to debate.
However, the are some flaws in his argument:

1. A year and a half a go, our country was shaken when they found out about the Sandyhook Elementary School Shooting where 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot twenty children and six adult staff members. Had the principal had a gun he could have faced the gunner and saved innocent children who hadn't even gotten all their teeth in yet.
Flaws: However, had a teacher had a gun, it could have possibly caused more deaths and having guns in school might cause a teacher to use the gun or a student and actually increase school shootings. Furthermore, only 1.6 percent of mass shootings ended in a civilian using a gun and successfully intervening. Furthermore, many in many situations a civilian successfully intervened and got killed, hurt or even died.

2. Many criticize that people couldn't do these crimes if they don't have the gun in the first place. But no, guns are stolen in cases as this and many others.

Another flaw, 80 % of mass shooters obtain the gun legally.

A 1982 survey of male felons in 11 state prisons dispersed across the U.S. found:
" 34% had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"
" 40% had decided not to commit a crime because they "knew or believed that the victim was carrying a gun"
" 69% personally knew other criminals who had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"
Another flaw: Since it only was conducted in 11 state prisons it is not the whole United States, also they only went to only STATE prisons, the statistics do not represent the ENTIRE U.S.

Based on survey data from a 2000 study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, U.S. civilians use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year.
Flaw: Only 0.5% of people in all of the U.S successfully defend themselves from gun violence every year.

However, I think the U.S. needs more gun control:
1. About 30,000 people die every year from gun homicides.
2. In 2015, more people will die of gun violence than automobile accidents.
3. Most violent crimes are committed with guns so gun control, would help curb crime
4. Most guns uses in Homicide or any kind or crime are legally obtained
5. Gun Control would help curb suicide rates.
6. Most Americans support gun control
7. Countries with more guns have higher Homicide rates, America had about 310 million guns and had a homicide rate of 4.8 per 100,000 people. United kingdom has a homicide rate of 1.0 per 100,00 people and has 4 million guns and tougher gun laws, and the same can be comparable to countries with less guns and more gun control.
8. 70 percent of homicides are with a gun
9, A gun is more likely to bystanders than any other weapon.

USA is 24th in murder rate of countries so we need to arm our citizens.

Also John Lott, Jr. and Bill Landes say “States that allow law-abiding citizens to carry concealed handguns enjoy a 60 percent decrease in multiple-victim public shootings and a 78 percent decrease in victims per attack.”

USA's Murder rate has decreased over %65 since 1973 in stride with many state's gaining gun rights.

John Lott, Jr. Co-author with Bill Landes of “More Guns, Less Crime. says:

“With just one single exception, the attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns.”

A principal would most likely not have not be able to defeat the shooter and most likely kill himself and cause others to be injured. Only 1.6 percent of mass shootings end in a successful intervention by a bystander and only 0.5% of Americans successfully defend themselves from gun violence each year. Statistically speaking, there is a 98.4-99.5 percent chance that he would get killed or worse, injured and brain dead. The argument that more guns= less violence is false, the 5 most dangerous states in America have less gun control than states that have more gun control. While citizens should be able to have guns they NEED to be controlled.

The Unites States murder rate and crime rate have been decreasing because of factors, unrelated to gun rights. There are two articles here about it:

States have also been enforcing more gun control and crime is dropping. A ban on semi-automatic and auto-matic guns in from 1994-2004 helped curb crime and murder in the U.S. until it expired in 2004. The ban on semi-automatic weapons is proof that gun control actually works and crime is easily controlled by gun control.

IT's okay for citizens to have guns, but they need to be controlled. With power comes responsiblity, that means background checks and banning dangerous military weapons like semi-automatic weapons so that is doesn't fall into the wrong hands.

More guns actually mean more murders and crime according to a study done by Micheal Siegel in Boston College the more guns people have the more crime that they will commit.

"With all this preliminary work in hand, the authors ran a series of regressions to see what effect the overall national decline in firearm ownership from 1981 to 2010 had on gun homicides. The result was staggering: "for each 1 percentage point increase in proportion of household gun ownership," Siegel et al. found, "firearm homicide rate increased by 0.9R43; percent. A onestandard deviationchange in firearm ownership shifted gun murders by a staggering 12.9 percent."